The Fifth Circuit reversed summary judgment for NOAA and NMFS in a challenge to the agencies' rule requiring charter boat owners to install NMFS-approved vessel monitoring systems (VMSs) to track the vessels' GPS locations. Charter boat captains argued the rule's tracking requirement exceeded the au...
A district court upheld BLM's approval of a proposed lithium mine project in Nevada. Environmental groups, ranchers, and tribes argued the project would cause unnecessary and undue degradation to the local sage-grouse population and habitat, groundwater aquifers, and air quality in violation of FLPM...
A district court granted summary judgment for BLM, fishing groups, and a tribe in a challenge to the Oregon Water Resources Department's (OWRD's) order prohibiting the Bureau from releasing water from Upper Klamath Lake. The plaintiffs argued BLM was required to comply with the ESA in operating the ...
A magistrate judge recommended that environmental groups' motion for summary judgment be denied in a challenge to FWS' authorization of oil and gas drilling on the northern coast of Alaska. The groups argued that FWS' five-year incidental take regulation, accompanying biological opinion, and EA unla...
A district court granted in part and denied in part a mining company's motion to dismiss a lawsuit concerning a proposed open-pit copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. Environmental groups argued FWS and the Army Corps of Engineers violated the ESA by failing to reinitiate consultation in re...
A district court denied summary judgment for commercial fishermen and a trade group in a lawsuit concerning NMFS' allocation of red grouper fishing privileges in the Gulf of Mexico among recreational and commercial fishermen. Plaintiffs argued that Amendment 53 to the fishery management plan for ree...
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, affirmed summary judgment for FWS in a lawsuit concerning a petition to amend the Service's 1993 recovery plan for the endangered grizzly bear. An environmental group petitioned FWS, proposing additional recovery areas in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah that it argu...